Heroes and Generals at Gamescom

We met Kenneth Ellegaard, producer at Reto-moto, at Gamescom 2014 to talk about Heroes & Generals and more specifically about the Rommel update which main focus is the revamp of the generals system.

Kenneth introduced us into the game telling us you can play as a Hero, which is one of the following types of soldier: rifleman, paratrooper, recon, tank crew or fighter pilot. By that alone you can really tell that the game features full-fleshed battles. Then he moved into Generals, which were the thinking heads, the ones leading the Heroes.

Previously it was pretty easy to become a General, which led to bad decisions made by inexperienced Generals, some of them giving up after a while, and so on. After the Rommel update players must level up their character and gain experience across several battles to be able to become General, which will grant bonuses depending on what they specialized on when they were leveling up. This way, Generals will have fought as Heroes first, knowing what they’re capable of to command them.

Then he let us know they’re on early access on steam and they got great feedback from the community, along with a decent boost on their player base. Thanks to that feedback they decided to tweak the General part of the game to fix some issues they were having. Also there is a synergy between Heroes and Generals where they can earn assault teams by playing as Heroes to then use it as Generals.

Other changes were introduced thanks to players’ feedback, such as capitals; now there are 15 capitals that requires players use different tactics to try and take them, either still focusing on using their resources to try and grab one or two, or spreading them wider to attempt taking more. Previously players only had to work out the best strategy to take 2 capitals and so the best tactics to get a capital always ended up being the same.

The producer then talked about gear customization, where players can get upgrades for weapons, but also cosmetic stuff such as camouflage, decals and engraves which is something really cool, and probably the main source of income for this title. A good thing about the gear is that when you convert your soldier into a General all its gear will be put into the warehouse so you can use it on another character and is not wasted.

One of the few things added for Heroes on Rommel, apart from item customization, is the wrench, which allow players to repair vehicles, they hope it will bring new tactics when it comes to vehicles, having them being more careful, hiding to get repaired and such.